How do you respond to Porter Goss who claimed in an NYT oped that McCarthy should have a) raised concerns first within the CIA, b) second to Congress, and that by not doing so she is not a whistleblower but a criminal?

As a member of Congress in 1998, I sponsored the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act to ensure that current or former employees could petition Congress, after raising concerns within their respective agency, consistent with the need to protect classified information.

Exercising one's rights under this act is an appropriate and responsible way to bring questionable practices to the attention of those in Congress charged with oversight of intelligence agencies. And it works. Government employees have used statutory procedures — including internal channels at their agencies — on countless occasions to correct abuses without risk of retribution and while protecting information critical to our national defense.

On the other hand, those who choose to bypass the law and go straight to the press are not noble, honorable or patriotic. Nor are they whistleblowers. Instead they are committing a criminal act that potentially places American lives at risk. It is unconscionable to compromise national security information and then seek protection as a whistleblower to forestall punishment.

George W. Bush's ...guiding principle ... has been to avoid and avenge the mistakes of his father's presidency.

Why should we hear about body bags and deaths ... it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?

Lets also not forget that Cheney himself said at the time that not going into Bagdad was the correct decision. You might say he was against it before he was for it...

I think W's resentment of his father is why getting a second term was *so* important to him that he would be willing to break the law to get there.

I think W probably enjoyed the idea of outing a CIA agent, given his fathers comments about it be treasonous behavior.

I don't think he is avenging his father so much as trying to prove himself better than his father.

My reply would be that the secretive, highly-political stooge Porter Goss needs to read up on the kinds of classification that are not allowable under law and get back to America when he can say something that isn't a steaming pile of intellectually bankrupt horseshit.

You know, that's what he says, but is there really any internal channels left?
Do you think anyone left at the CIA trusts the administration with the Plame outing and Rumsfeld's own super-secret intelligence service (safe from Congressional oversight, by the way).
Perhaps that is part of this warrentless domestic survelliance-just tap the Post's phone lines and emails, and there you go!

It is not legal to classify material to conceal government wrongdoing, or to prevent political embarrassment.

In this regard, it is worth noting that the President does not have unfettered authority to declare any information he wants as classified. To the contrary, Section 1.8 of the still binding 1995 Executive Order governing the classification process specifically prohibits classifying information in order to conceal governmental wrongdoing:

(a) In no case shall information be classified in order to:

(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;

(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/12/threatening-administration-critics.html

He's not grousing about her managerial abilities, he's reasonably trying to innoculate himself from claims that they are old friends.

He's doing this by saying a) he respects her technical skills but b) she made for a terrible manager.

Sigh, that describes my better managers, the other ones I don't even respect for their (former) technical skills.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

I suppose it's a timing thing. The McCarthy story beat the Drumheller report by 12 hours or so. But the two do go together.  Only the New York Times seems to have put the two together but even they haven't put 2 and 2 together.

 Headlines - BIG - C.I.A. Fires Senior Officer Over Leaks

Small Criticism From Ex-Official

Some criticism!

WASHINGTON, April 21 — A former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency has accused the Bush administration of ignoring intelligence assessments about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs in the months leading up to the Iraq war.

Tyler Drumheller, the former head of the C.I.A.'s European operations, is the second C.I.A. veteran in recent weeks to attack the White House's handling of prewar intelligence. The criticism comes as the administration is already facing complaints from retired generals who have criticized the decision to go to war in Iraq and charged that civilian policy makers at the Pentagon ignored the advice of uniformed officers.

In an interview on the CBS News television program "60 Minutes" that will be broadcast Sunday evening, Mr. Drumheller said that White House officials had repeatedly ignored the intelligence community's assessments about the state of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Mr. Drumheller declined an interview request on Friday, citing an agreement with CBS that he not make public comments until the television interview is shown. A CBS news release issued on Friday included excerpts from the interview.

According to the release, Mr. Drumheller cited one instance in which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, told President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that a paid agent in Saddam Hussein's inner circle, Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, had reported that Iraq had no active programs for weapons of mass destruction.

Three days later, according to Mr. Drumheller's account, the White House told C.I.A. officials that it was proceeding with plans to go to war.

"And we said, 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said, 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.' "

A CBS spokesman, Kevin Tedesco, said Mr. Drumheller's account was that the exchange took place in September 2002, six months before the American invasion of Iraq.

... In an interview on Friday, Mr. Pillar said many people still serving in the intelligence community were angry about what they deem the manipulation of prewar intelligence.

"Are there people still wearing the badge inside the intelligence community who share these concerns?" said Mr. Pillar, who is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University. "Absolutely. There's no question about it."

Demand the Truth

Thanks Larry, I think it is important for you state that you are not a friend of Mary. It makes your states on the subject even more important and forceful.

I was just watching the Godfather series on TV. The script of that family business and the way Bush is running the country is as if they were twins. I just watched the scene where Michael has all his enemies hit at the same time.

Our American legal system is not capable of defending itself from criminals within. It is not capable of defending the American government from criminals within. The prosecutors within our justice system start at the bottom and work their way up to top of the criminal organization.

The GOP has become a criminal organization. Now I am not saying Republicans are criminals. No the GOP leadership and supporter are the criminals and the Republicans.

So what does the movie "The Godfather", Bush administration, and the American justice system have in common. It is the need to address criminals in power all at once and not one by one. That means using the Italian justice method of mass criminal trials of all the criminals at once. That means arresting the criminals appointed by Bush to government positions that have destroyed that government agency's functions and capabilities. It means arresting Rice, Rove, Gonzales, Cheney and Bush. It means put them on trail for treason, and this they have publicly admitted too.

Doing trails against each one of the these criminals one-by-one only allows more crimes to be committed by the criminals in power.

America can not try to protect itself from an organization intend on destroying America and its government just so the rich and corporations can benefit.

"We the People" must stand up and be counted. We must stand up to these criminals.

We must arrest in mass those who have committed crimes against America. Put on trial for their crimes against America.

That is what makes America great.

That is how we defeat terrorist.

That is how we regain the World's respect and once again be the beacon of light for freedom.

It is time for us to put an end to criminal organization of the GOP and Bush administration.

We The People!
We The People!
We The People!

Larry - Thank you for offering insight based on reality.  So are we going to see a bunch of until now silent, retired CIA senior officers going public, like their military peers? 

If you are Josh Bolten trying to fix things and Scot McClellan trying to get out the door you get the pleasure of discussing the CIA with a media that has new material to work with. I don't wish McCarthy ill but her firing will put the hot spotlight back on leaking, CIA and detention practices.

Just a quick question, how could Ms. McCarthy be fired for leaking information about a program that doesn't exist?

Suppose she had leaked the information that the director kept a three foot wide wheel of cheddar cheese in his office. Would she be fired for that?

Apparently the CIA has just admitted that the secret prisons exist. Oops...

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Tyler Drumheller, the CIA's former top man in Europe, tells CBS News that the White House ignored intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. Drumheller says former CIA Director George Tenet told the president and the vice president that Iraq's foreign minister, with whom U.S. spies had struck a deal, was saying that Saddam Hussein had no active WMD program. The news fell on deaf ears, Drumheller says.

That's from Tim Grieve at Salon. So the beat goes on...

Somebody correct me if I've got this wrong, but my understanding is that McCarthy failed a lie detector test and was summarily fired.

Although the general public and professional spooks as well perhaps want to assume lie detector tests are reliable, my impression is that they are anything but. So much is riding on personality factors.

While I appreciate LJ's intention to demonstrate his impartiality bona fides by criticizing McCarthy as a manager, I too thought it piled on a bit and had a feel of kicking someone while they were down.

I only offer this as feedback to LJ, as always I respect and value (the more general point of) his postings.

Related to McCarthy's firing, I'd be interested to hear any speculation about revelations of Rice's alleged leaks to AIPAC lobbyists. Perhaps it is too early to comment. This exemplary team-playing ass-kisser, whose incompetence is more responsible than anything else for the 9/11 fiasco, has got away with so much for so long.....

You seem to be making two different points. "I'm sure intelligence professionals feel that they have been doing a good job on a technical level, but that things have failed on a political level. Just like GWB, LBJ refused to listen to what he was being told - also with disastrous consequences." How is this a failure of intelligence, rather than a failure of political leaders accepting how intelligence is to be used?

The other problem, which I think you oversimplify a bit, is "The major failing is that the US has developed a self contained military/intelligence community which has built up a wall of secrecy around its activities. This prevents independent review of what is being discussed and leads to bureaucratic self interest becoming the real mission of these organizations. Government officials must rely on the work of these organizations and have no way to evaluate the material being offered. Actually, there are reviews, although not on everything.

Even within the intelligence community proper, it's not uncommon to see a community report that has dissents, called reclamas, from individual agencies or groups within agencies. For some topics, there are external expert reviews either by a mostly-academic organization (e.g., JASON) or ad hoc> groups such as Pipes' Team B under Reagan.

One critical problem is that by the time many reports reach the NSC level, the reclamas, footnotes, confidence levels given to sources, etc., are often removed in the interest of "readability." Only a couple of the President's Daily Brief have been partially declassified, but I find it significant that they do not contain the assorted compartmented security warnings, source evaluations, and other information that helps the intelligence professional interpret a report.

One significant problem, addressed by the 9/11 Commission, is the inherent conflict of interest between intelligence agencies producing what they best believe to be correct, and finding themselves frozen out of Presidential and NSC contact because, variously,

1. The physical presentation, or writing style, isn't something the principal likes. Historically, some want quantitative analysis, others want a leavening of scandal, others want a "headline" treatment.


2. The principals want intelligence that's tailored to their preconceptions, and will stop listening at all if what they receive constantly opposes them

I don't think you addressed my main point: the lack of openness. Having one secret department review the work of another secret department when both stand to gain from keeping a huge intelligence system in place is not adequate. The CIA knew about Abu Ghraib, the abuses at Guantanamo, and their own illegal, non-existent prisons. Only public exposure brought these topics up and caused policy discussions and changes.

Abuses of power can only be countered by being revealed and the subsequent public outrage. The bottom line is, there is too much hidden in the intellegence area and in most of the military system, for that matter.

Recent examples of retroactively classifying open material, or going after Jack Anderson's papers have nothing to do with intelligence gathering and everything to do with wishing to keep what these agencies do away from public oversight and review. That's no way to run a democracy.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

It is silly to blame anyone for not foreseeing the collapse of the USSR. That was an issue of "state of mind", which is usually not well known in regard to one's friends, or even oneself.

Gorbachev probably didn't know what was going to happen until he saw what had to happen.

While intelligence agenices are always asked the question of intentions they almost never can answer it. Sensible questions are, what does the other guy have, and what is he now doing?

As in the NSA story, that the CIA detains people is not news to anyone but five-year-olds. How does this knowledge help the bad guys? Will they refrain from booking a flight on that Gulfstream?

So we have two leaks that expose possibly illegal activity, and one "leak" that muddied the waters of knowledge and possibly hurt ongoing legal operations.

So the CIA is staffed (not "manned" some of the employees are female) entirely by thugs and incompetents? Way to slur everyone. I'm sure there are some thugs (Porter Goss comes to mind) and incompetents (Porter Goss comes to mind again) but let's not tar everyone. It was Bush/Cheney who cherrypicked the intelligence and got Tenet to kowtow to them. A lot of people "in the bowels of the agency" got it right and were ignored or brow beaten.

Tom

And whom do you suggest do the stepping out of the frame? Career diplomats? Politicians? MSM?

Incidentally, what specific kinds of intel do you consider it a bad idea to read?

I'm sure there are some thugs . . . .

Who do think is "manning" Air Rendition, hmm?

A lot of people "in the bowels of the agency" got it right and were ignored or brow beaten.

I suppose -- if you're one to believe the self-interested "incompetent analysts" and what they're saying, now. But for those of us a might more sceptical, we'll wait for the public excretion of that famous exculpatory analysis -- reportedly, still moving slowly through "the bowels of the agency" -- before we give the CIA a rousing cheer.

A number of organizations --especially, in Ireland -- have identified the tail numbers of the CIA aircraft and toted up their flights.

Of course I suppose it's possible that the flights aren't for the purpose of rendition. Perhaps, the CIA thugs have been "disappearing" their cargoes over the North Sea.

... and who do we think is giving the orders to have an Air Rendition in the first place?

The only analysis that we will ever see publicly will admonish only people at lower levels and make Bush look good. Everything else will be classified until the year 2525 and anybody who leaks it will go to jail.

Tom

If torture was 'effective' who would you torture, and where would you do it hcb?

 It's unclear what CIA management knew about Abu Ghraib...

 On the contrary, it is clear everyone above Corporal Graner was intent on blaming him and other enlisted personnel for the sadistic, illegal policies and procedures those in command, CIA and military, set in motion. 

Wow! You are so intelligent! Really deep! An absolute brain trust! Now do you feel better? Good.

But you really must learn not to throw phrases together and think that they have anything to do with rationality. Vague? Methinks you should look inward. Or maybe outward. Or maybe at a book (one that is objective -- but sigh, a pipe dream!)

Adieu, hc!

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. -- Edward R. Murrow

Jan Knaus

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Perhaps this has something to do with Ms. McCarthy's decision. I know that as I lawyer I am often taken aback at how sanguine lay persons are when it coems to Bush violations of law, especially the criminal statutes (FISA)

Ms. McCarthy, who began attending law school at night several years ago and was preparing to retire from the C.I.A., may have felt she had no alternative but to go to the press.

Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules - 

Let's see, the director of the CIA tells you its a "slam dunk" that Iraq has WMD and Iraq's foreign minister says that it doesn't. Sorry, but I think it is more prudent to trust the director of the CIA over Iraq's foreign minister (even if the latter was taking money from the CIA).

As with so much else that has occurred over the past few years we may never know the precise details of what has occurred here.

One thing we do know is that the administration often wields power vindictively. Retribution for even a minor slight of an administration capo is typical and a serious infraction is almost always fatal to a career.

Career government employees are seldom, if ever, fired via actions taken within their bureaucratic structures. Agencies protect their employees as much as possible. I strongly suspect the vast majority of government employees are honorable and patriotic and discharge their duties with integrity. There has to be pressure from above to fire someone. With this administration we have seen frequent incidences of political or ideological conflict as an arguable, but inappropriate, part of the mix in firings of public employees.

This is what justice looks like in this era of unprecedented corruption and abuse of power. The only thing yet to be revealed is how much uglier the abuses may become. The potential for even greater harm to the country has an awful lot of people very worried. And justifiably so.

thepeoplechoose

Consumers of intelligence always have to accept that they are reading what may be very informed guesses, but still guesses. I've always loved the title of one book about an internal CIA debate in the sixties about which of two defectors (Golitsyn or Deriabin) was real: A Wilderness of Mirrors. Finding truth in intelligence reports is often much like finding the true image in mirrors facing one another.

Intelligence failures don't always involve misreading of minds, but of failure to understand physical phenomena. The WWII invasion of Tarawa (yes, the actual invasion was of Betio in the Tarawa atoll) was exceptionally bloody, due to misinterpretation of tidal patterns and the location of some reefs.

Let me confess to some Iraqi-related intelligence that I misinterpreted, the misinterpretation coming from reading too many facts from other sources into it. When the Iraqi mobile labs were first discovered, and I read the initial CIA report on them (sorry, the PDF doesn't show the link), I jumped to a conclusion. Contrary to many sources that say the first weaponized US biological agent was anthrax, the first actually ready for operational use was tularemia (the high-disability, low-fatality disease caused by Franciscella tularensis). Tularemia bombs had to be filled, within 48 hours of use, with a liquid slurry of bacteria. The US plan had been to fly bulk tanks of the organism to the advanced bomber base, and fill the bomblets there.

Slurries were just too cumbersome to use, and the US and UK programs went to powders. Nevertheless, the first description of the Iraqi facilities was not superficially inconsistent with what you'd use in preparing a bacterial slurry near a launch site. Further investigation revealed that wasn't their function, but it was suggestive.

Incidentally, even if those labs were confirmed to be tularemia production facilities, I'm not convinced that would have justified an invasion.

Actually the reports are, she failed the tes and admitted she talked to reporters about the information.

Bush/Cheney get caught leaking classified information; hence they don't get fired. Unfortunately, that's how it works (at least until the November Congressional elections).

Tom

I'm not sure what point you are making. The history of intelligence is replete with examples of trusting the wrong source, including staff, on specific questions, but having a reasonable overall record. Perhaps if you tried for a little less sarcasm and a little more clarity, it might be easier to answer you.

You won't find me defending Tenet; I believe he went too far in satisfying the White House rather than focusing on objectivity. Nevertheless, I am reminded of a WWII report to German Intelligence, where a Spanish agent gave them an accurate report about where an Allied summit was going to be held. If the Germans had been able to attack such, they would have.

They translated every word in the Spanish-language report into German. Analysts concluded that it was impossible to attack a meeting in the White House in Washington.

Unfortunately for the Germans and fortunately for the Allies, "Casablanca" translates into "White House". The analysts didn't assume that the report referred to a city in North Africa.

It is a safe assumption that some intelligence reports will be wrong. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean you automatically trust alternative sources.

Have any of these secret prisons ever been located and exposed? What is the chance was some sort of scheme to flush a leaker?

 Good question, but it seems unlikely now that they have publicly fired a long-time CIA person for leaking this information.  If it were not true, why would she be fired?  Surely even George Bush can't classify something that is pure fabrication -- oh, yeah, I guess he can -- but then you can't fire someone for telling something that is just a made up fiction -- oh, yeah.  Never mind.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. -- Edward R. Murrow

Jan Knaus

I also maintain that I knew the USSR coudn't last. That's not the same as saying it will collapse at some specified time. Saying it will collapse in the indefinite future is trivial--so will we. In this very general sense the CIA and others did, in fact, see the USSR failing. That was the justification for the "spend-them-broke" policy of Reagan.
When people say the CIA did not "foresee" the collapse they refer to Gorbachev's specific backing away from East Germany, and that state's removal of the wall.

Irish, I agree. When I said "adieu" it was because it was going nowhere, and just becoming tit for tat, which is not what this site is about. So I had stepped back and started breathing elsewhere. Thanks for the reminder, though!

For what it's worth, I found a fascinating piece by John Dean over at commondreams.org about presidents' characteristics, and I recommend it.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices. -- Edward R. Murrow

Jan Knaus

Again Mr. Johnson, I say thank-you.

To this comment I wish to add that these are interesting times...especially for persons of honour who work within the Federal Government. Oaths of loyalty are not sworn to the President, they are sworn to the Constitution and the Country. What is sad is that decisions based upon one's honour are now being made forcing a choice between defense of the Constitution or defense of the current President.

When the claim is made that the information regarding the American secret Gulag of Prisons has hurt America's standing, why hasn't the president been asked why he so fears the American Dream that he would engage in such behaviours, and why did he did he lie about it just over one year ago?

In the foreward to Amnesty International's 2005 Human Rights report released mid May, 2005, Irene Khan, Amnesty International's Secretary General Secretary General wrote:

"Despite the near-universal outrage generated by the photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib, and the evidence suggesting that such practices are being applied to other prisoners held by the USA in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere, neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation.

Instead, the US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Conventions and to 're-define' torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques, the practice of holding 'ghost detainees' (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention) and the 'rendering' or handing over of prisoners to third countries known to practise torture. The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.

The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity. From Israel to Uzbekistan, Egypt to Nepal, governments have openly defied human rights and international humanitarian law in the name of national security and 'counter-terrorism'."

In a press conference on May 31, 2005, GW Bush said,

"I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that is -- promotes freedom around the world. When there's accusations made about certain actions by our people, they're fully investigated in a transparent way. It's just an absurd allegation.

In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know -- yes, sir."

Why hasn't anyone revisited this statement when querying Mr. Bush?

The United States Constitution: Article VI, Clause 2 states:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Mr. Bush does not sit outside of the Constitution's dictates and control, he instead sits in violation of it. It is his actions that have hurt America, not the release of data which have exposed his unconstuitutional acts.

If you don't want snooty barbs, don't barb. What else but a barb could "You are out for a fight, and I am not. be? As I said, you seem to know what is in my mind, and take me to task for it, as opposed to what I actually write here. I am more than open to substantive, not emotional, responses to what I write. When I responded with 1's, it was because I found your presentation to be sarcastic and directed personally rather than at the subject. I believe it is appropriate to do that in the middle of an exchange, if for no other reason than to give feedback on what may be the level of interaction.

Now, I am quite willing to be wrong that you did intend mutual respect. It is possible that you did, and, for whatever reason, I did not see that intention. I could have been wrong, or it simply could have been ways we use words differently.e

I strongly disagree with you on this point. What mistakes has W actually avoided? Ok, he hasn't barfed on the Japanese prime minister - yet. Seriously, many observers say that W is much more like Barbara Bush than he is like his father. Bush Sr at least *seemed* to care about people. Barbara Bush, well, listen to her words and then decide which parent W takes after.

To add to the irony, Barbara Bush has reportedly always favored Jeb, and looked down on Dubya.

I agree about her tranparency. One only needs to recall her comments about the Katrina victims:

“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them.”

You know what's really great about Larry's post? He acknowledges the nature of his personal professional relationship with Mary McCarthy in a completely frank and detailed way. That kind of information